Tag: money

Exodus 7:12

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Somehow the Yankees writing falls to me. Who’d’ve thought?

Big news yesterday – A-Rod opted out of his contract with the Yankees. He gave up $72 million in owed salary, which means the Yankees gave up $21.3 million from the Rangers. George Steinbrenner’s son Hank made clear that no effort would be made to reacquire him.

He’s .714 in guitar autography!  Can Jeter put up those numbers?There’s nothing more bizarre to me than the way New York sports fans and media treated Alex Rodriguez. They routinely savaged the best baseball player in a decade for not being a “clutch hitter” or falling flat in the postseason. They mocked or maligned him for only being “in it for the money,” as opposed to all the other mercenaries with hearts of gold that comprise the Yankees roster. First in the American League in home runs, runs and on-base percentage plus slugging? Screw him.

Scott Boras, A-Rod’s high profile agent, made this announcement midway through Game 4 of the World Series. He notified Brian Cashman by way of a voice mail. The timing of the message – during the final game of a World Series sweep by New York’s closest rival – plus the delivery suggest a cool and bitter parting. ????? ???? ???? So be it.

Here’s the thing: if A-Rod’s after money, he ain’t getting it. The only two teams that can supply the salary he’s accustomed to are the Yankees and the Red Sox (who don’t want him). The Giants can’t. The Phillies can’t. The Cubs can’t. So what does the most hated man in baseball – and how does a man as talented as A-Rod get that appellation – want? ???? ??????

The ring, of course. The one ring to rule them all.
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I fought the law, and the law won

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MoneyballWe all know Major League Baseball is a big money making business. Well that business thinks that it needs to protect itself from stats nerds like us. Because we’re using those stats to create a fantasy world of increased baseball enjoyment. ????? ???? ????? This is nothing new — in 2006 CBC Media (a small fantasy site) sued the MLB because they didn’t think they should fork over some dough to the MLB to use player’s name and stats. A judge ruled that CBC has first amendment rights to things publicly given to everyone in the newspaper.After that loss MLB decided to switch up their thinking. “We’ve agreed that the stats and names are in the public domain,” MLB Advanced Media spokesman Gallagher said after the ruling. ????? ??? ???? “But when you start to use team’s logos and other images as CBC did, you need a license, it’s that simple.”

But that didn’t last long, because the MLB got together a team of lawyers (quick note, this team of lawyers would still finish ahead of the Devil Rays in the standings) to keep fighting the good fight. such as the Lankford Law that are experts in all labor related laws. Just a few months ago as part of the appeal process one of MLB’s attorneys said that a fantasy league using names and stats without permission was analogous to a company printing posters or coffee mugs with pictures of players on them without permission. The judges appeared to be skeptical of MLB’s arguments. “MLB is like a public religion. Everyone knows (the players’) names and what they look like,” opined U.S. Judge Morris Arnold. “This is just part of being an American, isn’t it?”  It is important to understand what works and what does not when you are considering searching for a medical malpractice attorney. Many cases, such as voluntary cosmetic surgeries are not successful in court. Since these procedures are done at the request of the patient, the court typically rules in favor of the doctor. A strong understanding of medical malpractice will help you in your search for a medical malpractice attorney. Many causes of death which cause people to search for legal assistance are not, in fact, the fault of the medical practitioner. You can check here for more information about the Queens Personal Injury Attorneys ASK4SAM.

Even in cases where full recovery is possible, a traumatic brain injury attorney can get you a claim for the pain and discomfort you went through, and for the expenses you had to incur for your treatment. The amount of compensation sought in such cases is generally quite high. The fee charged by traumatic brain injury attorneys is also quite high, as they have to hire a research team and medical experts, and even then such cases may be hard to prove. There are attorneys who deal only with such cases, and in many law firms a traumatic brain injury attorney could be found sitting in a section meant for personal injury cases. With growing awareness about traumatic brain injuries, it is becoming much easier to locate a traumatic brain injury attorney; however, they are easier to find in big cities than in small towns. You can visit this website for more information about the traumatic brain injury

You should be very careful when considering a medical malpractice lawsuit. If you case is unreasonable or unfounded, you may be getting involved in a long and expensive process with no positive outcome. You should also be sure that you are filing the lawsuit for the right reasons. Anger and grief fuel many lawsuits today and some of them may even be successful with the right lawyer. But if you have a good case, a respectable medical malpractice attorney will be able to help you get your deserved payment. Most people think that by hiring a medical malpractice attorney, you’re only looking to get rich. However, most people who win their malpractice cases, or receive a settlement, have to pay the attorney, they have to pay for their medical expenses caused by the malpractice, and they have to support themselves if they’re out of work due to their new injuries. All of those payouts can quickly drain any settlement a person may receive for malpractice reasons. It’s not a way to get rich. ???? ????? ?? ???????? Instead, hiring a medical malpractice attorney and winning your case is vindication for the wrong that’s been done to you, and it will also teach the doctor or surgeon a lesson. Read More

Fill Those Seats

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Serpico’s excellent post yesterday got me thinking.

A professional baseball franchise has two goals which sometimes conflict: winning as many games as possible and drawing in fans. You might think those two go hand in hand but, as Serp pointed out, swapping out new talent every season makes it hard for the fans to invest in the team.

“Well, yes,” I thought, “but you get to save so much money. ???? ???? ????? ??? ????

Then I started to wonder – how much money? And what’s the tradeoff?

So I went to ESPN.com and Sportsline.com and I got two figures:

  • Total player salaries by team;
  • Average home game attendance as a percentage of stadium capacity

And I made a graph in Excel.

Seats vs Salary

(click the graph to expand to its full size)

Some interesting findings:

  • In the lower half, you get two sudden spikes at the San Diego Padres and the Milwaukee Brewers. They get White Sox level attendance despite playing like, well, the Padres and the Brewers. Where’s the draw? What did the Brewers do last season that I and the rest of the world missed?
  • The Boston Red Sox had 101.4% attendance on average in 2006. That’s not seats sold; that’s actual home game attendance. Look it up yourself. It pleases me to know that John Henry will admit more fans than the stadium has seats; anything for revenue.
  • The trendline continues upward pretty clearly except for one embarassing drop by the Baltimore Orioles. ???? ???? ??? They spent $93.55 million in 2006 on player salaries but only filled 57.1% of their seats on average. They’re spending St. Louis Cardinals money to get Toronto Blue Jays attendance.

I don’t know whether this data supports my thesis or Serpico’s. It may be too soon to draw that kind of conclusion. But I do know that it’s really interesting. ????? ??? ????

Moneyball: Pro

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Today’s post is Part One of Two, the “Pro” argument in a NerdsOnSports exclusive debate over “Moneyball” – or stats-driven baseball management. ???? ???? ??? Serpico takes the opposing side elsewhere.

My argument is that a manager can derive superior value in his team by managing based on statistics, rather than what are commonly called “intangibles.”

Consider the following:

(1) The object of a baseball game is to score more runs than the opposing team.

(2) Baseball does not have a clock; it ends when each team suffers 27 outs.

(3) Given 1 and 2, the team that can score more runs while suffering fewer outs will win a ballgame.

(4) Players earn runs by advancing along the basepaths. This can be done either by hitting or by being advanced through a walk or pitcher error (balk, etc).

(5) There is a fixed pool of available players for any given season. There are a fixed number of positions in the starting lineup – nine, to be precise.

As Kevin Bacon said in A Few Good Men, these are the facts of the case, and they are not in dispute. Those are the rules of baseball. All of the above are objectively true.

From that, I will assert the following:

(6) Given #4, a statistic which measures all the ways that a player can advance along the bases (for instance, on-base percentage) will be a more useful tool in evaluating a player than a statistic which does not (for instance, batting average).

That right there is the core of Moneyball – the idea that many traditional statistics, such as stolen bases, RBIs and batting average are not as useful as OBP, slugging or VORP.

Consider: RBI is the number of runs a player bats in. But in order to hit in a run, another player needs to have advanced to scoring position. So your RBI stat hinges on the scoring ability of the player before you in the lineup. This changes every time the lineup is altered, or every time you change teams, but no one thinks to qualify RBI with a little asterisk.

Batting average is neat, too, but it doesn’t measure the times that a player will advance a base through being walked. ???? ????? ??? ???? ??????? And for the big hitters like David Ortiz, Rickey Henderson or Joe Morgan, bases on balls constitute a significant percentage of their run production.

(7) Given #5, teams with less money to spend will not be able to outbid teams with more money. As such, the only way to maintain a competitive edge over those teams is to find undervalued statistics – stats which point the way to potential runs without seeming to.

The Oakland A’s do not have as much money to throw around as the New York Yankees (the most lucrative sports franchise in the world after Arsenal Football). Oakland will never beat New York in a bidding war over a hot free agent. What they can do, however, is search for run-generating players who New York overlooks. They do this by mining statistics that no one else looks at (such as OBP, or pitches broken down by ballpark) and turning up players like Scott Hatteberg and Kevin Youkilis.

That, right there, is the core of the Moneyball contention. There are certain statistics which illuminate a player’s potential more than others. If those statistics remain overlooked, a money-savvy manager can scoop up big-hitting talent at bargain prices. Such a case seems indisputable. ????? ??? ???? ???????

Now that you’ve read my argument, go read Serpico’s counter.

The NerdsOnSports Mailbag: Fun With a PR Agent

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Part of the fun of blogging is opening your material up to the world and seeing what the world makes of it. Actually, I suppose that’s all the fun of blogging, unless you’re in that .0001% who are making money off this type of thing. So, like pretty much any editor of any neophyte blog, I get somewhat excited when e-mail from complete strangers arrives in our inbox. The other day, we got a message from a major media outlet, KTVT in Dallas:Mailbag

Saw that you picked up the story of our interview with Tom Hicks where he talked
about Juando and steroids. If you want to see that part of the original
interview, it’s online at http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=19196@ktvt.dayport.com .

Ok, so I suppose that’s not that exciting; he’s just monitoring incoming links. But then this comes in, and this is what makes internet life worth living:

(oh, come on, you know you have to click through.) Read More

Money shot

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First and most important: RIP Rod Beck. I didn’t follow his career closely enough to write a proper eulogy, but he and his awesome facial hair will be missed.

In lighter news, last Thursday dollar bills fell from the sky at Petco park, just before Albert Castillo hit a solo homer in the sixth inning. Apparently, a fan in one of the suites threw a couple dozen dollar bills onto the field below, with the majority of them landing in left field, foul territory and the Orioles dugout.

Described as “a literal money shot” – which is really an unfortunate play on words, if you think about it – the homerun inspired Castillo’s teammates to collect the falling bills they could find and award them to him. Although he declined the money, perhaps fans have found the proper incentive in getting the Orioles offense to wield a little more power? Maybe some fives and tens to get Millar on base more often? Or a couple of benjamins to motivate the O’s bullpen to actually successfully save a game?

I wonder how much the ballgirl ended up finding. It’s got to beat the stuff that usually gets thrown onto the field: beachballs, batteries, and all the rest.